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Just to note, "initialism" as a part of speech is deprecated, in favour of the actual part of speech. —CodeCat 01:35, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

I was using an existing entry as a model. I assume that would be a proper noun, then? bd2412T 01:36, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

I think so, yes. It's deprecated, but we still have existing entries that use it ("abbreviation" and "acronym" are also deprecated). They're being converted as people find them, but it's a slow process. —CodeCat 01:38, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Can't we get a bot list of entries containing the header, "Initialism"? bd2412T 01:56, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Most likely, there already is one. You could ask at WT:ID if someone can point you to one. —CodeCat 02:32, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

I am very strongly tempted to piss everyone off by converting them all to proper nouns! haw. Equinox◑ 03:22, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Just looking at AAA, at least some of them appear to be adjectives (e.g. "Awaiting aircraft availability"). bd2412T 03:23, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

If we want to fix these systematically, it's probably less soul-crushing to start with the small easy ones, rather than the lists of 20 possible expansions. Perhaps get a list of initialism sorted by number of sense lines? (Remember, too, that we have other initialism-esque headers like Acronym and Abbreviation.) I could make a tool to help but I have 50 other things I want to do first. Equinox◑ 03:28, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Hello! I notice that in appendices like this one or this one, there is a list titled "homophones" that contains various words that are vaguely similar in spelling. Is this some specialized meaning of "homophone"?__Gamren (talk) 14:20, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Homophones are words that are pronounced the same as some form of the variation term. bd2412T 14:23, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean that an entry A should be considered a homophone on Appendix:Variations of "B" iff, in some language, the word A is homophonic with any of the words that are considered "variations" of B (for some rules that I cannot seem to find)? 'Cause that seems silly.__Gamren (talk) 16:29, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't know that we have written rules for these; they have always just been done this way, but the homophone variations are generally the common examples. bd2412T 16:55, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Would you consider using {{place}} for these? You won't have to type as much, and it can include automatic categories as well. For a county of Estonia, I think you'd use {{place|en|county|c/Estonia}}. —CodeCat 22:48, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

About "nove di quadri", "nine of diamonds" and other playing card entriesEdit

When Wiktionary is "finished" (which will never happen, apparently), personally I think I'd like having any of these scenarios:

having no entries like "nine of diamonds" at all in any language

having all these entries in all languages

having all these entries, but only in English

having exactly one entry in English and nothing else, like "ace of spades"

I believe "nine of diamonds", "nove di quadri" and all others like them are SOP, but the possible reasons for keeping them would be more or less the same reasons for keeping older sister, next year and other members of Category:English non-idiomatic translation targets. We may want older sister but maybe we don't need irmã mais velha (which is "older sister" in Portuguese), because English entries have translation tables, and FL entries don't. That's why I think we may want to keep all entries like "nine of diamonds" in English only. Or have only one English entry to use as the single NISOP, because all the other English entries would be basically the same anyway.

I think it's a bit weird keeping nove di quadri if we won't have nine of diamonds in the first place. I think either deleting all these Italian entries and/or (!) creating all these English entries would be an improvement, but I'm not saying we should do any of this right now. We can discuss it later in the BP.

Maybe what you did was a good idea (at least in short term), I don't know. If we have only nove di quadri and not nine of diamonds, you at least got rid of a redlink, and now we have usable blue links in these entries, instead of controversial redlinks.

That said, I believe this is important: You said "per Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2011/April#Poll: Playing cards" in the edit summaries, but I believe that was not accurate. This statement makes it sound like the poll has a consensus for doing something. I believe the poll "ended" as no consensus — even though technically, the poll never formally ended. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 04:18, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't realistically think we are ever going to include these, unless there is some language issue where there are a number of languages using a single-word term. My impression was that this had been discussed and decided somewhere, but the linked discussion was the last word I could find in an admittedly hasty search. bd2412T 04:23, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

I've been botting through these and removing all entries where the original mentioned word is no longer present in the original linking entry - which is quite a lot of them! I hope this might help in your worthy quest to get them cleared out. Right now I still need to process pages H through T, but I'll have those done soonish. Equinox◑ 09:05, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

By hand or by bot? There must be some way to automate that process. bd2412T 12:50, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

I've finished it now. It was automated. I'm not sure that I understand your question though. Equinox◑ 21:56, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

I thought that you meant you were doing it by hand. bd2412T 22:13, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Do you think it a good idea to speedy delete 103 and 104? These entries do not contain anything beyond the literal. We've had so many RFDs on similar items and the principles are now even codified in WT:CFI#Numbers, numerals, and ordinals (also thanks to your effort), so it seems going without RFD would be fine. I am okay to go via RFD as well, but speedy seems fine. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:54, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

I suppose a weak case could be made to keep them on the grounds that (according to Wikipedia) 103 is the emergency number to call in ambulance in Belarus, India and Ukraine, and 104 is a somewhat notable art center in Paris. Not so sure about the dictionary merit of the latter, but if the emergency number is used like 911 and 999 are i the countries where they are used, then it should be added and the entry kept. bd2412T 16:03, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I guess I'll send them to RFD to sort it out. The way it is right now, the rationale for keeping these entries is not clear from the entries themselves. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:10, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Please do not create entries in languages you are unfamiliar with merely based on an entry in another language's Wiktionary. In many cases, as in this one, you can spread misinformation, and you are relying on other people to go over your edits and fix them. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 04:50, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Your point is well-taken. I am curious, then, what should be done about this entry in the French, Malagasy, and Gagana Samoa Wiktionaries? bd2412T 19:54, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

The French and Malagasy Wiktionaries have no real criteria for inclusion like we do, so I doubt they'd fix it even if we used the right language to tell them. I don't know the state of the Samoan Wiktionary, but given its size, I assume it is a similar case to the others. The problem of other Wiktionaries' reliability is another reason you should be careful, but it is beside the main point. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 22:08, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

(butting in) Malagasy is a hopeless case anyway; there is a bot running that mines English and French Wiktonaries, and applies transitivity to translation pairs like crazy, resulting in a quite unique phenomenon, a lexicographical analogue of large-scale brain damage. Gagana Samoa for bër was created by the same bot.

As for French, my best guess is that they have a way of dealing with erroneous information.

In any case, before there was the English wikt entry for bër, the French entry for bër was the only independent record in wikt.org. And making en wikt entry based on that French entry would mean that the French entry for bär would have remained the only independent record. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:56, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

On the merits, it seems entirely plausible to me that the Wolof word for butter would be borrowed from the French, if butter was not originally part of their cuisine, and was introduced to them by the French. Otherwise, what is the Wolof word for butter? bd2412T 15:02, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I created bëër, but now I noticed bëer and bóor; is there a considerable variation in spelling, or what is going on? --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:23, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

All of these - bër, bëer (bëër?), and bóor - are plausible alternative usages, given that we're talking about an approximate transliteration (Wolof does not have the same menu of vowels as French) that would likely have made it into the spoken language long before being reduced to script. bd2412T 16:25, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Plausible, yes, but actually in use? A fluent speaker or a non-fluent speaker familiar with the language and equipped with good lexicographic resources would be able to sort this kind of thing out. Anyone else is likely to make a mess of it. I don't give people legal advice, and you shouldn't be creating entries in languages you don't know. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:46, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Plausible based on its longstanding existence in French Wiktionary. bd2412T 16:48, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

The existence of bëer was based on me forgetting our orthographic norms for Wolof, which is a bit rich considering that I was the one who codified them by writing WT:About Wolof in the first place. In any case, I'm a bit frustrated at the fact that you seem not to have gotten the point that fr.wikt is not what we should base plausibility on. I check Diouf's Wolof-French dictionary pretty much every time I create a Wolof entry, and that or something of similar reliability should be the basis of all our entries created by nonspeakers. (I have studied the language, but cannot speak it all.) —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 23:09, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

@MK: Deleting bëër created by me to make room for your erroneous bëer was not exactly polite, I would say. You should have deleted your erroneous entry and then placed your content to my entry if required. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:00, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

I did it in the more efficient way. Don't lecture me about politeness until you learn how to display it. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 16:07, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

In fairness, the most efficient process would have been moving my entry at bër to bëër, and then creating the separate entry at bër. bd2412T 17:38, 21 September 2017 (UTC)